Photo By Sgt. 1st Class John Healy | Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat...... read more read more
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CAMP HOVEY, South Korea – The 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, conducted a spur ride at Camp Casey, Jan. 21, 2016.
Soldiers hoping to earn their silver spurs completed a variety of team-oriented tasks set up throughout the post, including a test of unit history, weapons familiarization, first aid, and a mystery event.
Spc. Jacob Harmon, a 32-year-old cavalry scout from Oregon, currently assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company of 1-5 CAV supported the spur ride by volunteering in the mystery event.
“What I’m doing is putting on a brawl suit to simulate a combat situation while a team of three clear a building,” said Harmon.
The building is question is the tiny gym located on the hillside behind the 1-5 CAV headquarters. Normally clearing the two-room building wouldn’t be a problem for the spur candidates, but the instructors have been running a smoke machine inside the gym, obscuring vision to the point that you can barely see five feet in front of you.
“You have an individual that has a hostile intent towards the people that are clearing the building themselves,” said Harmon. “Its our task to put the team into a situation where they have to be able to subdue the hostile.”
Harmon hides behind an overturned desk towards the back of the gym. The three-man team clears the first room and stacks on the doorway to the second.
At a signal from the team-leader the trio glides onto the gym floor, fanning out to cover the building from wall to wall.
The instructors have cleared a fifteen-foot stretch of floor in the second room of any furniture or equipment. With the windows covered, the only thing the Soldiers can see if front of them is the thick, curling wall of smoke with their enemy lying in wait somewhere inside.
The sight causes the group to stutter in their previously smooth routine. Harmon chooses this moment to strike.
He doesn’t yell. The only thing the Soldiers hear is the soft tap of sprinting feet before Harmon collides with the one closest to him, propelling them both to the ground.
The Soldier yells “Contact!” and his comrades are with him in an instant, managing to restrain Harmon safely in handcuffs after a brief struggle.
The mystery event is 1st Lt. Shawn Platz’s first station in the spur ride.
“We were ready for anything, and that’s what we needed to be,” said Platz.
Platz, and infantryman, also earned his expert infantryman badge during the Korea rotation.
“Personally I saw a lot of our armor brethren coming out and giving us support during the expert infantryman badge,” said Platz. “I wanted to be a part of that tradition where we turn around and do something that guys from all branches can do.”
“We’re all part of the same team,” said Platz.
On the other side of Camp Casey, Staff Sgt. Jonathon Nennig, and infantryman with Bravo Company, 1-5 CAV, oversees a group of spur candidates as they disassemble and reassemble a variety of weapons systems while blindfolded with the assistance of an unhindered partner.
The goal for this station isn’t to ensure that Soldiers are trained in disassembling their weapons, said Nennig.
“Each event has its own purpose,” said Nennig. “Right here, what we’re trying to emphasize is teamwork. It takes a bit of leadership too.”
Despite the bitter chill, Nennig doesn’t mind doing his part to help the next generation of cavalry Soldiers earn their spurs.
“You don’t get promotion points for it, it doesn’t go on your ERB, but at the end of your career, it’s going to go somewhere in your house,” said Nennig. “You’re going to put it up somewhere and say yeah, I got to do this, and I got to do this with good friends.”
| Date Taken: | 01.21.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 01.24.2016 20:46 |
| Story ID: | 186913 |
| Location: | CAMP CASEY, KR |
| Web Views: | 477 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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